


Culminare

by osmalic



Category: Oz - L. Frank Baum, Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Gregory Maguire, Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-30
Updated: 2006-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:51:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osmalic/pseuds/osmalic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two women, two fates, two endings--and one little girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Culminare

**Author's Note:**

> An experiment in style and writer-controls-reader.

Elphaba Thropp is beginning to think that her life isn't a conspiracy line; it is bottled.

Liir had begun to glare at her often and would complain to Nanny about the Witch's sadistic plans until Elphaba threatened to box his ears, upon which he would make a hasty retreat. The green bottle still stands on the table next to Elphaba's bed, the taunting label 'MIRACLE ELI-' turned away to make it less tempting. For what else could that potion (if it was indeed a 'potion') tell her that she did not already know? And what good would the bits of truth (if they were indeed 'truths') do her?

She had mused out loud to Nanny earlier: "Perhaps we must fortify the castle's defense. We can't count on the soldiers in the barracks."

"Aren't you being a tad paranoid against a little girl?" Nanny lovingly asked.

"Who has companions with her," Elphaba retorted. "And am I the only one who remembers she killed Ne—" but stopped in fear Nanny would burst into tears. Elphaba knows nothing about comforting.

And now there is only the dreadful wait. Her telescope is propped and ready, looking towards the East. Sarima's castle in Kiamo Ko, although already devoid of human noises, sounds eerily strange with the combination of Killyjoy's barks, the buzzing of bees, the squawks of crows, and the monkeys' chats. Elphaba sits in her tower, hands folded on her lap and glaring at the open book before her.

The Grimmerie, with its shifting pictures and words, tells her nothing. Oh, there is nothing worse than sitting and waiting! It vexes her, these endless hours of sitting with Chistery and staring at the torn pages. "Torn," the useless Winged Monkey would say often, "tiff, tease, tie, true," before Elphaba shushed him.

Yet what else can be done other than to wait and think? Did the Wizard—old, tired, and still powerful—really set the task of killing the Wicked Witch of the West on a little girl? And what did he hope to achieve?

Scanning a page, Elphaba thinks she reads, _"On the Placing of Magicale Strings on Ye Puppet,"_ although when she blinks they are all squiggly lines and diagrams that make no sense. Oh, she is getting old and what has she to show in her age? An unfinished degree, a failed duty, an invalidated affair, and an empty castle full of lunatics.

 _"Nothing is written in the stars,"_ Princess Nastoya once urged her. _"Not these stars, nor any others."_

She doubts it, and she had warned Glinda just as she tried to warn her sister—yet no one had listened to her, not even Fiyero, for all the love he promised her. But now, looking down at the empty castle grounds where only the ghosts of Sarima's family roamed, she thinks she has to recount her decisions.

For was it not she who recited revolutionary poetry while blanketed by the open stars and blue diamonds of her lover's body? And was it not she who hesitated in her duty to kill Morrible? And was it not she who failed Sarima and her sisters, who let Nor be taken prisoner, who left her sister Nessarose the responsibilities of ruling? All that Elphaba could have changed, she chose not to, and it galled her now to remember. Her sheer _arrogance,_ thinking that all she needed to change the world was herself!

She looks at the book once more and captures stray words on the same page: _"...finde thy purpose...thine words art thou swords...indeed, countries shalt riseth...(and be destroyede)..."_

 _"No one controls your destiny,"_ the Princess Nastoya said so, so long ago.

No pushes nor prods had been done—for all that Elphaba did, she did as her choice. Even the Princess Nastoya, with her kind words and heart, did not do anything that Elphaba already desired. And in the end, Elphaba still chooses to run away.

With some wonder, she lays her palm cross the pages of the Grimmerie and _stares._ At the green skin marked with lines and that foretells no destiny. The hands that have no power to absolve sins that are not hers to bear.

Her mother. Her father. Turtle Heart. Shell. Boq. Glinda. Liir.

"And so the mistakes are mine," she tells Chistery. "But they are not all mine, for I should give them credit. They all follow their own paths." Dr. Dillamond. Ama Clutch. Fiyero. Sarima, Nessarose. All of them. The mistakes she did were not because of Madame Morrible, nor was it because of the Wizard, nor the Clock of the Time Dragon. They were not because of any dwarf behind a ticking Clock, nor of an old Superior Maunt who once held the Grimmerie in her hands. They had been Elphaba's choices and decisions. And for all her supposed names, who is she to think that she has any hold on the past?

She is Elphaba Thropp, last of the line of Thropps, the Wicked Witch of the West. Let those stand for now. Let words from others wash over her and make her, but not today.

And for now, the Witch closes the Grimmerie slowly, puts on her cape, fixes her pointed hat, and lets her palm rests easily on the crook of her broom handle. A wind blows inside from the window. She closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath.

It is time to meet this Dorothy.  


| 

Emily Gale thinks that if her life was a fairy tale, then there should be a "happily ever after" to her "once upon a time".

As it is, her beginning is nothing to be remarked upon. A life with a family composed of a mother, a father, and a much older brother whom she knew was not really her brother. Ma was more of a prominent figure, with her straight back and thin hair always pulled into a bun. She smiled at everyone but her smile put creases on her face and made her look more unpleasant.

And while Ma took care of everyone, Emily noticed later how she usually spoke with Billy only through Pa, except when they argued. And how Ma would divide the lunch pails' content with ease, but hesitating whenever she came upon Billy's, then hover momentarily before sealing the package and nodding to herself, as if satisfied.

Ma said to her once, "Never love something that isn't yours," while Emily wept when her pet goat was roasted for dinner and Pa spanked her for crying. But Ma only embraced her and said, "I love you," and it mattered.

Billy was not Ma's son: he was the son of Pa's first wife, but he was courteous with her and Ma was also civil. And it was with bewilderment that Emily found her mother crying hard that first night Billy left their house when he sought his fortune at the railroad industry.

Years later, when Emily is married and doesn't need books from school anymore, there is still a small house and a field. When she looks into the speckled tin mirror she keeps inside her drawers, all she sees is her mother's face: the same thin skin outlining her bony cheeks, lips grown narrow and grayed, wrinkles splayed over her forehead and under her eyes, and the dimple she had once been so proud of now a simple weary line next to her mouth.

She thought, once, that she has lost the ability to speak. There is no one in the house with her now during the day when her husband tends to the crops. Long ago, when she was newly-married and there was more money, she and her husband would go to the town festival to listen to the bands playing their horns and—if it was tuned—the piano. And there would be news from all over the world: of assassinated presidents, countries in turmoil, Spain and America, and new ideas that weigh revolutions. Listening to them, however, made them seem fantastic like the books Emily once read. These changes used to overwhelm her, but now there is no more time for fairy tales.

Emily washes the dishes and hums some tunes she heard from the local bands traveling the roads and into towns:

 _Because you come to me with naught save love,  
And hold my hand and lift mine eyes above,  
A wider world of hope and joy I see,  
Because you come to me..._2

But she stops with a sigh, "Oh," to break the monotony of hums and silence ringing in her ears.

And only weeks ago, there had been laughter in this house. Emily bites her lips and wishes, not for the first time, that she remembers how to laugh. Now, when she looks out the window, she sees only the endless dust on their porch, the crops that need to be tended, the lightning that looms from the darkness.

Sometimes, oh sometimes, a tornado.

On the table, three letters lie opened and ignored, all carrying the same words. _"Dear Mister and Missus Henry Gale,"_ Henry had grimly read aloud earlier, _"It is with great sadness that we begin this correspondence with no news on your niece..."_

Billy and his wife are dead, drowned at sea so long ago. And now, their only daughter is gone, disappeared in another tragedy—but Emily washes the dishes and cleans the house because Ma told her once, _"Never love something that isn't yours."_ Billy was never her brother, not really, and Emily had never even met his wife. Nothing tied them because Emily only thought of family as Pa, Ma, and herself.

Even now, there is only her and Henry.

This morning, Henry holds Emily and tells her resolutely, "You are my whole family," before he leaves.

Emily replies, "Be well," even though she does not smile.

 _And what of the child?_ Emily scrubs the laundry angrily, furiously. With thoughts on land leases, mortgage, dinner, vegetables, and here, these dirty clothes, there would be no questions about silly fairy tale things such as love, and affections, and 'happily ever afters'. She has never thought of her niece as 'theirs', and Emily had never loved anything that was never hers to begin with.

A gust of wind over her laundry area, and Emily's heart skips a beat. Looking around, she notices how the wind feels like it is singing a song even when no songs should be sung now.

Tonight, when she prepares dinner, she thinks she would tell her husband, "No more."

Yet Emily thinks of their silent house, of absent laughter, and of fairy tale endings. And her tears fall into a bucket of dirty clothes and soap bubbles because Dorothy is not hers. Not hers and _oh,_ how Emily misses her!  
  
---|---  
  
  
The little girl thinks she should understand the words 'destiny' and 'love', yet she looks at the setting sun and into the direction of the Vinkus Country and all she knows is 'fear'.

**Author's Note:**

>  **[1]** culminare – (Lt.) "culminate", to reach the highest peak  
>  **[2]** "Because" (1902 song) Original French lyrics written by Helen Guy (Guy d'Hardelot), English words by Edward Teschmacher. [ [lyrics](http://www.pdmusic.org/1900s/02because.txt) | [midi](http://www.pdmusic.org/1900s/02because.mid) ]


End file.
